Sean F. Dunphy

The plaintiff brought a motion for summary judgment in a wrongful dismissal action.

He claimed he was induced to leave his previous employment and sought 12 months' notice, along with compensation for a discretionary bonus.

The court found no inducement, as the plaintiff actively sought the position and negotiated his terms.

The court awarded 4.5 months' reasonable notice, considering his age, position, short tenure, and the time of year he was terminated.

The claim for bonus damages was dismissed because the bonus plan was purely discretionary and required active employment at year-end.

The plaintiff was also awarded mitigation expenses and health benefits, subject to deductions for earnings from his new employment.

The applicants brought an application for a declaration regarding the boundary between their property and the respondents' property, alleging trespass, negligent misrepresentation, and nuisance.

The court dismissed the trespass claim, finding the respondents had established a crystallized claim for adverse possession of a narrow strip of land up to an old fence line prior to the properties' conversion to the Land Titles system.

The negligent misrepresentation claim was dismissed as improperly pleaded and unproved.

The nuisance claim regarding water run-off was converted to an action and directed to a summary trial.

The applicant client brought an application under the Solicitors Act to refer the accounts of his former solicitor for assessment.

The solicitor argued the accounts were final and out of time.

The court found the accounts were interim, as they were rendered during a single litigation matter to an unsophisticated client.

The court also found special circumstances existed to warrant assessment, noting the solicitor charged over $15,000 while only advancing the case to a statement of defence and appearing to pursue unnecessary steps against the client's wishes.

The accounts were referred for assessment.

The plaintiff brought a motion for partial summary judgment alleging breach of the Copyright Act regarding marketing materials for a residential development.

During argument, the plaintiff realized its legal position was flawed and abandoned the motion.

The defendant sought costs of $34,719 on a substantial indemnity basis, while the plaintiff suggested $6,000.

The court found the motion was peripheral to the main action, unnecessary, and caused significant delay, bordering on an abuse of process.

Applying Rule 20.06, the court awarded the defendant costs on a substantial indemnity basis, fixed at $29,719.12.

The defendants moved to strike a graduate student's Statement of Claim arising from allegations that university officials pressured him to switch from a PhD program to a Master's program and interfered with funding.

The court found the pleading prolix, deficient in material particulars, and inadequate to support pleaded causes of action for breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress in its current form.

However, it was not plain and obvious that the claims were incapable of amendment, particularly regarding alleged contractual rights to funding and limits on university discretion.

The claims against the individual defendants, and the claims for conspiracy and fraudulent misrepresentation, were withdrawn on consent.

The impugned remaining claims were struck with leave to amend, and no costs were ordered.

In a mini-trial of an agreed issue arising from judgment-enforcement litigation, the court held that after the debtor's bankruptcy and discharge, any claim under the Fraudulent Conveyances Act belonged to the bankruptcy estate and could only be pursued by the trustee or a creditor acting under s. 38 of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act.

The plaintiff's motion to continue personally against the bankrupt debtor on the theory that the claim survived discharge under s. 178(1)(d) was dismissed.

On the factual issue tried, the court found that a series of real estate transfers and mortgage transactions involving family members and related parties were undertaken with intent to defeat, hinder or delay the plaintiff's collection efforts.

The court made no liability ruling on remaining non-FCA causes of action and reserved costs.

The self-represented plaintiff moved for judgment against 115 dissolved corporations, asserting that he had become their owner under common law abandonment principles akin to finders keepers.

The court held that, although proceedings may be brought against dissolved corporations under the Business Corporations Act, the statutory revival and vesting provisions precluded the plaintiff's claimed route to ownership.

A dissolved corporation is not property capable of being found or appropriated, and the plaintiff had no legal interest making him an interested person under the Act.

The motion was denied and the action dismissed.

The applicants sought a declaration that residential property registered in their adult son's name was beneficially theirs, relying primarily on resulting trust and alternatively on express trust, unjust enrichment, and adverse possession.

The court held that the presumption of resulting trust arising from the gratuitous 1990 transfer was rebutted on the evidence, finding that a gift to the son was more plausible than a bare trustee arrangement and rejecting the current denials of gifting intention as unreliable.

However, the court found that the son's 2014 affidavits and consent created an express trust in favour of the applicants from August 20, 2014 onward.

Title was vested in the applicants subject to enforcement of the former spouse's registered family law judgment to the extent outstanding as of that date, with no costs awarded.

The third party moved to stay a third party claim for lack of jurisdiction or, alternatively, on forum non conveniens grounds in litigation arising from leaks in an Alberta pipeline project.

Applying the real and substantial connection framework, the court held that Ontario had jurisdiction because the alleged tort had a pleaded situs in Ontario, the litigation involved an Ontario contract pleaded to be governed by the Sale of Goods Act, and the engineering design work lay at the core of the dispute among all parties.

The court emphasized that the jurisdiction inquiry must consider the overall subject-matter of the litigation rather than the third party's characteristics in isolation.

The motion was dismissed, and the court declined to stay the proceeding in favour of Alberta because separate proceedings would risk inconsistent judgments and procedural inefficiency.